Notre Dame heeds halftime message in blowout of UMass

Notre Dame heeds halftime message in blowout of UMass

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — For a few nervy hours, Notre Dame looked like it could be in for a major letdown against a downtrodden program Saturday.

But a few key plays late in the first half and a pointed halftime message pushed Notre Dame to score 41 unanswered points en route to blowing out UMass, 62-27, at Notre Dame Stadium to tee up a pivotal playoff showdown against Clemson next week at Death Valley. The 62 points were the most scored by Notre Dame since a 62-0 win over Rutgers in 1996.

Midway through the second quarter, Notre Dame led 21-20 against a team that only has five wins in 39 games since becoming an FBS program in 2012. Minutemen running back Marquis Young ripped off an 83-yard touchdown run to end the first quarter, and UMass entered halftime averaging 7.3 yards per play. Notre Dame struggled to defend a fast-paced offense that frequently changed looks, which gave the Irish defense fits.

“We definitely needed to re-focus on defense and make sure that we did our job on every play,” defensive tackle and senior captain Sheldon Day said.

Notre Dame’s defense hit the reset button in the second half, finally looking like the far more skilled and athletic side against a entirely overmatched UMass team. The Minutemen only scored a garbage-time touchdown late in the fourth quarter, while Cole Luke registered Notre Dame’s first interception of the season.

“We have a standard that’s set for ourselves, every player and defense as a whole, the team as a whole,” linebacker James Onwualu said. “We have a standard that we want to meet and we didn’t necessarily do that in the first half. Coming out in the second half, we got that accomplished.”

It was all an offense that was firing on all cylinders — both with its first and second-team units in there — to pull away for a comfortable five-touchdown victory.

“They're better than we are,” UMass coach Mark Whipple said. “We'll take the money and run.”

Eight Notre Dame players accounted for the team’s nine touchdowns: Quarterback DeShone Kizer threw and ran for a score, freshman quarterback Brandon Wimbush ripped off a 58-yard touchdown run in his college debut, running backs C.J. Prosise (two TD’s), Josh Adams and Dexter Williams all dashed into the end zone and receivers Will Fuller and Chris Brown scored, too.

This was a game Notre Dame had no business allowing to be close. A team with legitimate playoff aspirations doesn’t let UMass hang around, no matter how complimentary coach Brian Kelly was of the Minutemen after the game (“I think they've got a great chance of winning the MAC,” Kelly said). The optics of a close game against a team that’s now 5-34 at the FBS level wouldn’t have been good.

So for Notre Dame, it was mission accomplished on Saturday. The Irish exited the game without any significant injuries — left tackle Ronnie Stanley, who’s dealt with some patella tendonitis, went down in the second quarter but returned, while wide receiver Corey Robinson (sprained knee in warmups) and tight end Tyler Luatua (concussion) were scratched, but aren’t expected to be out for long.

Now, it’s on to Clemson for a game that could make or break Notre Dame’s nascent playoff bid.

“I know these guys are going to be excited for the Irish to come into town,” cornerback KeiVarae Russell said, “and trust me, we’re excited to go.”

Is Brian Kelly out at Notre Dame if new QB Brandon Wimbush’s rocket arm doesn’t deliver for Irish in 2017?

Is Brian Kelly out at Notre Dame if new QB Brandon Wimbush’s rocket arm doesn’t deliver for Irish in 2017?

A 4-8 season in 2016 has put Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly firmly on the hot seat as he heads into his eighth season with the Fighting Irish.

In response to a tumultuous season, Kelly made major changes to his staff this past offseason by hiring new coordinators on both sides of the ball.

Mike Elko, who previously led Wake Forest to an FBS Top-40 total defense ranking, was hired by Kelly to be Notre Dame's defensive coordinator, and Chip Long — former offensive coordinator at Memphis — will now be in charge of the Fighting Irish offense.

However, the biggest change and arguably the No. 1 factor in Kelly's long-term future in South Bend, will be the person under center in 2017.

Barring an unforeseen circumstance, junior quarterback Brandon Wimbush — a former Rivals four-star recruit — will lead Notre Dame out of the tunnel in Week 1 vs. Temple.

Wimbush has only thrown five passes during his time at Notre Dame, but showed what kind of talent he has with a 58-yard rushing touchdown as a freshman in 2015.

I’m a big fan of Wimbush but that hasn’t always been the case. It’s not that I didn’t like him when I first scouted him before his high school career took off, but what I saw way back when was a kid who had a rocket arm and zero touch. But throughout his high school career he improved every time I saw him, showed much more than just a strong arm and flashed impressive poise for his age.

I’ve seen very limited action when it comes to Wimbush in college as he hasn’t played often and his spring game performance had ups and downs, but I believe in this kid’s ability. He can extend the play, has that great arm and just needs to get comfortable in the Notre Dame offense and make sure he doesn’t try to use that cannon to fit the ball into tight spots. I can see him having some growing pains this season, but as he gets more comfortable and learns to take what the defense gives him while keeping defenses off balance with his athletic ability, I think he’ll finish strong.

Two views of Notre Dame's 2017 signing day class

Two views of Notre Dame's 2017 signing day class

After a handful of late additions sent in their national letters of intent to the Guglielmino Athletics Complex, Notre Dame on Wednesday announced its 21-player recruiting class of 2017. There are a couple of ways to view the end of what was a volatile recruiting period for the Irish:

The glass-half-full take:

Two and a half months after wrapping up an embarrassing 4-8 season, Notre Dame's 2017 recruiting class ranks 11th by 247 Sports, 13th by Rivals, 13th by Scout and 16th by ESPN. In fact, Notre Dame actually ranks higher this year in 247 Sports' composite rankings (11th) than it did in 2016 (15th), when the Irish were coming off a 10-win season and a Fiesta Bowl berth.

Nearly scraping together a top-10 class after going 4-8 and losing four assistant coaches in Mike Sanford, Mike Denbrock, Scott Booker and Keith Gilmore is an impressive feat (Greg Hudson was only an interim defensive coordinator, and Brian VanGorder was far from a reliable recruiter). Plenty of kudos should be extended the way of recruiting coordinator/defensive line coach Mike Elston for heading up the program's efforts to keep what began as a pretty strong class from disintegrating.

Additionally, coach Brian Kelly pointed to the work of the 15 verbally-committed players who stuck with their pledges even as Notre Dame sustained a string of confounding losses and significant coaching turnover.

"We couldn't be where we are today unless we had 15 student-athletes that were committed to Notre Dame from the start to the finish," Kelly said. "Really during a very difficult season, this group of 15 really had to endure the things that would occur out there in recruiting during a very difficult season. Other schools reminding them about a very difficult season that we had. Then there was them sticking together because of why they wanted to come to Notre Dame."

Five of those players enrolled early — tight end Brock Wright, offensive linemen Robert Gainsay and Aaron Banks, running back C.J. Holmes and safety Isaiah Robertson, all of whom 247 sports rated as four-star recruits — and guys like tight end Cole Kmet, quarterback Avery Davis and offensive linemen Joshua Lugg never wavered, too.

That those players stuck together helped Notre Dame maintain a good base after the NCAA-mandated dead period lifted after the College Football Playoff title game last month, and new coaches Brian Polian, Mike Elko, Clark Lea, Chip Long and DelVaughn Alexander were able to bring in six late additions to the class: safety Jordan Genmark Heath, wide receiver Jafar Armstrong, kicker Jonathan Doerer, defensive lineman Myron Tagovailoa, linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah and defensive lineman Kofi Wardlow.

Armstrong, Tagovailoa and Wardlow all filled red-line positions of need, while adding more players to increase the pool of talent available to Elko is hardly a bad thing.

But the optimistic viewpoint here is the deck was stacked against Notre Dame in recruiting, and they actually turned out a pretty good hand thanks to a complete effort from everyone in the athletic department.

"In a lot of instances he had to be there to support our football program and talk to recruits about where this program is and where it's going. There are questions when a family comes on campus. He reminded them about the investment we were making in staff and what we were doing for the present and for the future. So having Jack's involvement in this was absolutely crucial to get to where we are."

Now, for the glass-half-empty take:

Notre Dame had six players decommit, five of whom were at positions of need (defensive line, cornerback, wide receiver). Only four-star defensive end Robert Beal jumped ship before Notre Dame's fall tailspin was underway, and four of those six decommitting players were four-star recruits.

Notre Dame wound up replacing them with six late commitments, but five of those late-deciding players were three-star recruits and one (Doerner) was a two-star player. That's a good recipe for slipping from having a top-10 class to one on the outside looking in.

A common lament among fans is that Notre Dame has struggled to sign five-star recruits lately, and while it's true the Irish haven't done that since 2013 — Jaylon Smith and Max Redfield, as rated by 247 Sports — that's not as big an issue as it may seem. Just look at the disparity in college success between Smith and Redfield as a front-and-center example of how a five-star rating doesn't guarantee success in college. Signing more four/five-star recruits than two/three-star ones is far more important (more on that in a bit).

But the bigger issue with Notre Dame's 2017 class perhaps has more to do with its 2016 class. Notre Dame lost ace recruiters Tony Alford and Kerry Cooks after the 2014 season and re-worked its entire recruiting operation in response, which led to little oomph in a 2016 class that, based on the prior season, should've been much better than it was.

Last year's group could ultimately build a legacy as a less-heralded crop of recruits that went on to success — the strong debuts of 247 Sports three-stars in cornerback Julian Love and wide receiver Kevin Stepherson were good starts — but there's a long way to go there.

If 2016 was supposed to be a more transitional recruiting class, though, then 2017 represents a massive missed opportunity. Going 4-8 with all the right recruiting machinations in place is a glaring shortcoming for the future of the program — even a nine-win season could've allowed Notre Dame to hang on to some of those four-star players it lost and earn a top-10 class ranking.

The last two recruiting cycles have been, in that context, significant disappointment. While strong classes in 2014 and 2015 could prop up a playoff run as soon as this fall, the future of the program may not be on solid footing even if the Irish engineer a major turnaround in 2017. Next year's class likely will be critical to the long-term success of the program under Kelly, presuming he's still around to usher in the next group of recruits in February of 2018.